Hateful and Extremist Communication on Gaming (-Adjacent) Platforms

The last decade has seen the rise of (digital) gaming as a mainstream phenomenon. Today, millions of people regularly play video games and form new digital communities, both within games and on gaming and gaming-adjacent platforms. These platforms form a new digital ecosystem that includes livestreaming services such as Twitch and Kick, communication platforms such as Discord, digital distribution services such as Steam, game-building environments such as Roblox, and a variety of gaming forums such as Mod DB and Gamebanana. All of these platforms have specific and important functions within the larger eco-system. While these platforms primarily serve as spaces for entertainment, social interaction, and community building, they are now also important forums for political and societal discourses. Users are exposed to and engage in conversations about a range of different issues, which could influence their views and, ultimately, real-life political discourses and realities. Recent research has uncovered that these platforms are also spaces in which hateful and extremist content is spread. Initial findings suggest that extremist content in digital gaming spaces is diverse – in form, ideological characteristics, and presentation. Our research in the context of the RadiGaMe project, for example, uncovered a significant amount of right-wing extremist, Islamist/jihadist, Incel/manosphere, antisemitic, and conspiracy-related content as well as hybrid forms of extremist communication in these digital gaming spaces. Given the popularity of digital gaming spaces, these narratives could potentially reach millions of users. However, systematic empirical research on the nature, prevalence, and effect of such content is still in its infancy. How (if at all) does hateful and extremist content on gaming (-adjacent) platforms differ from similar content in other digital spaces? What (if any) new patterns of communication and modes of interaction can be observed? What (if any) role does gaming play? In our paper, we seek to shed light on some of these blind spots, particularly regarding hateful and extremist communication patterns on gaming (-adjacent) platforms. We present preliminary findings of an in-depth analysis of hateful and extremist content in previously under-explored digital gaming spaces carried out in the context of the RadiGaMe project. The focus is placed on Mod DB and Gamebanana – two forums in which users share and discuss self-made modifications of popular commercial games, sometimes adding extremist themes to previously non-extremist video games – as well as the game-building platform Roblox and the game store Steam. We explore different types of hateful and extremist content and user profiles on these platforms, comparing how extremist communication differs among these platforms and exploring similarity and differences with extremist content in other digital spaces with a particular focus on the role of gaming does (not) play.